Returns, started in Shopify by Aide and your team, or in your returns portal

Aide can now start a return in Shopify for a verified shopper who asks, and teammates can start one from the conversation's order. Stores that run returns in Loop, AfterShip or another returns portal can have Aide send shoppers a "Start your return" button that opens the portal on their order. Returns are off for Aide until you turn them on, because every store's return policy is different.

How it behaves

Turning it on: Settings › Inbox › Statuses and timers, in the Returns section. "Aide starts returns" is "No, answer and hand off" by default; until you change it, Aide answers return questions from your knowledge and hands off, as before.
Approve the new permission first: stores connected before this change must approve Aide's returns permission once. Open Aide in your Shopify admin and approve the updated permissions. Until then the Returns settings show "Approve the returns permission" once returns are turned on, Aide offers no returns, and the teammate dialog says the permission is missing.
What Aide offers: only to a shopper verified in chat (signed in, or matched by email and order number), or writing by email from the address on the order. Aide offers only shipped items that Shopify can still take back, asks for a reason if the shopper didn't give one, and offers the return ("Return 1 x Blue Mug from #1042, reason: too small?"). Nothing happens until the shopper says yes.
Your return rules apply: Aide follows your return policy in Shopify: its return window, whether it counts from each item's delivery or the last one, and whether the store accepts returns at all. When a market has its own return policy, an order shipped to a country in that market follows it; other orders follow the store's default policy. A store with no return rules in Shopify uses the return window from the settings (30 days from delivery by default). Settings shows which one is in use, for example "Using your Shopify return policy: 30 days from delivery". Following a market's own policy needs the markets permission, which comes with the same approval; until it is approved, every order follows the default policy.
Items Aide never offers: products with a tag you list (for example final-sale, since Shopify's final-sale lists can't be read), items outside the window, and anything on an order that already has a return in progress.
Reasons: the shopper picks from the reasons Shopify suggests for that product, shown in your store's wording.
Request or open: by default the return is created as a request the store approves in Shopify, and Aide tells the shopper the store will email the next steps. Choose "Open straight away" to open it at once; Aide then tells the shopper the store will send the return label.
Human in the loop: on topics set to human in the loop, the confirmed return waits in the approval queue for a teammate, as other order actions do.
Teammates: "Start a return" in the order's menu in a conversation lists the items Shopify can still take back, read live from the store, with quantities, a reason and request or open. Teammates can return items Aide wouldn't offer (outside the window, or excluded by a tag); the dialog marks them. The same order permissions apply as for other order actions.
Returns portals: choose "Link to Loop", "Link to AfterShip" or "Link to another portal" in "Aide starts returns" and enter the portal's address (it must start with https://). When a shopper wants to return or exchange something, Aide says they can start it in your returns portal and shows a "Start your return" button, translated into the shopper's language. Aide doesn't create anything in Shopify then; the portal runs the return and its rules.
The portal opens on the order: for a shopper verified in chat, or writing by email from the address on the order, the button opens the portal on that order, so they skip the lookup. Loop gets the order number with the order's email or its shipping ZIP, whichever your Loop portal asks for (set "Loop looks orders up by"); AfterShip gets the order number and email. A shopper who isn't verified gets the portal's start page, with nothing about any order in the link.
Check the link: after saving, "Try the link on your latest order" opens your portal the way a verified shopper would see it.
Portal questions: Aide answers questions about your return policy from your knowledge, as before, and doesn't promise that the portal will accept a return, a refund or a label.
By email: the button becomes a "Start your return" link under the reply.
Not in this change: refunds through a return (refunds stay separate, with their limits), return labels, exchanges, Loop's and AfterShip's own APIs, and returns created outside Aide showing in the conversation.

For developers

POST /v1/conversations/:id/orders/:orderId/return starts a return: lines (lineItemId, quantity), reason (a reason handle), optional mode (request or open, defaulting to the settings) and requestApproval. It answers with an order action whose action is return.
GET /v1/conversations/:id/orders/:orderId/return-eligibility lists the returnable lines with their reasons, the return policy in use, whether a return is already open, and permission. The policy's market names the market whose own return policy applied, or is null for the store's default policy and the settings' window.
GET /v1/returns/status says whether the store has approved the returns permission (granted, missing or no_store), the return policy in use, and portalTestUrl, the returns portal opened on the store's latest order (null without a portal).
Inbox settings gain returns: handledBy (none, shopify, loop, aftership or portal), portalUrl (https, required for the portal handlers), portalIdentifier (email or zip, for Loop), shopifyMode, windowDays and excludedProductTags.
Widget messages gain a return_link block (url), shown with the new returns.start label, which can be edited per language like the other widget labels.
Order actions' action gains return.

All changes